Trigger / Content Warning: mentions self-harm

I saw the pile of pills, like ants atop a hill. 

Milling about- beckoning me. 

I swished the container 'round, to hear the rattling sound 

a despondent clamor of death 

against plastic. 

I took the bottle and swallowed whole 

every piece, down my throat. 

Little stones lodged in my own tube. 

Water could not wash them away 

like a beaver's dam, resisting the flood of rain.

Instead the dry chalk stream on my tongue traveled around 

my mouth 

and the swell of 

nausea in my stomach 

gripped me. 

The container from my hand fell, 

rolling away on the floor. 

My fingers grasped at my neck, 

uselessly trying to make the strangulation go away. 

Finally the wave of sickness passed,

and the pile moved on forth. 

But upon seeing the empty cylinder my mind was made–

I had made a mistake.